


Snake

by PrincessPhoenix



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:17:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrincessPhoenix/pseuds/PrincessPhoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Half-meta, half-fic about the manipulation and hold Peter has over some of the characters and reminding everyone that he is not a nice person at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snake

Peter Hale is a snake, quick movements and a honeyed tongue. He darts in and out of the holes in your soul, coiling deep within. He waits to strike, fangs kept hidden by a smug smile. Poison fills his words when he pushes his way deep into your soul. He is the kind of snake that can wrap himself around you and squeeze the life out of you for years, rather than hours.

For Scott, the squeezing lasts for a month or two before stopping. It returns again, stronger and more constrictive for its absence. It manifests in nightmares and waking up screaming in the middle of the night with tears running down his cheeks and his chest tight, tight, tight.

His existence is like being strangled. Scott does not say anything, does not tell anyone that he can feel those cold blue eyes on him even when there is no one there, can feel the hot breath and hear the extravagant sighs. He keeps it contained, in the bottom of his heart, watching as the others begin to heal.

When he is trapped in the hospital his body feels like the life is being squeezed from it. Peter is unnervingly close, and that night, when Deucalion leaves him at last, Scott’s dreams are filled with burning red eyes and hands that tear at his body to reveal his soul.

He says nothing to anyone and buries it deep in the dark where Peter feeds off of it and coils a little more, squeezes a little tighter.

For Lydia, it is a heavy and suffocating pressure that drains the life from her before lifting suddenly. It is a pressure that is still there, tainting her every moment awake and asleep, but it is distracted. Uncaring. It has sucked her dry and now lingers as if it has forgotten where it is. Perhaps the coils will tighten out of habit and Lydia will wake up screaming.

She is able to learn to live with it, and even learn to ignore it. The poison swims in her veins, turning her into something else, but she carries herself tall and sneers at those who would dare to point out that maybe she is not as sarcastic or as sharp-tongued as before the bite.

When she faces the serpent for the first time and hears his honeyed words and the fake guilt he holds in his eyes she raises her chin. He looks surprised and then furious, standing to the side with a mocking hand wave.

She sweeps past him as the serpent around her tightens its hold, taking notice for the first time.

For Derek Hale, it is a constant pressure that he sometimes forgets is there. It manifests itself by painful squeezing while he gasps and scrambles for air. It cuts off his air and suffocates, grinning as it crushes bone and organ and tissue.

Derek cannot remember a time that Peter has not been there. He supposes the constriction starts with Paige, but thinks sometimes, in the dark of the night, that is starts when he was a lonely kid who needed a friend and was approached by the uncle with slippery feel.

The snake that is Peter slithered around Derek, placed his head on Derek’s shoulder, and hissed in his ear for twenty long years. Derek sometimes thinks he’s free, free of the hissing and the squeezing, only to see glowing blue (once red) eyes and hear the soft sound that haunts him. Then he is pulled back in because, at least, the snake does not squeeze him as tightly and is not as noticeable. He listens, because the snake is the only one that is there, even supportive at times. The snake, his uncle, is family despite all that has occurred. It is almost enough to block out the pain.

So Derek tolerates the serpent that has him bound, and Peter strengthens his influence over the young alpha a little more each day.

For Stiles, and for Allison, it is a scar that they carry on their hearts. They see the snake kill or harm people that they love, but are outside of its influence. Their dreams are haunted by the sight of blood, the snake hovering over its prey, and even the way their friends look when the life is being crushed out of them. They are free from the constriction themselves, but their friends are in peril.

Stiles reacts with increased hostility and an alarming intent to kill. He reads how to kill werewolves, even corners Allison’s father one day and asks outright how to kill Peter. Chris is silent, telling Stiles to go home, forget about it, Stiles wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway. So Stiles reads on his own, delves into the strangest parts of the internet and the library in his quest. He sees the way Scott looks in the morning, the pale skin and the dark circles. He sees the way Lydia avoids them, sees her angry glares, her refusal to accept reality but her inability to escape it.

He sees the way she brushes her shoulder against Scott, the way that both of their hands touch as if drawing strength, and he can swear he sees the red-eyed snake wrapping around them both during those times.

Allison reacts with hostility, because this is Lydia and Scott she sees affected. But her hostility is calmer, the pull of the tide compared to Stiles’ tornado of energy. She can wait, has waited, will wait for her time. She prepares, learns from her father, even in retirement. Allison knows how to kill a werewolf, knows the way to draw out their agony.

Allison is not bound to Derek the same way Scott is. If she wants, she could trap the snake now and eliminate him. She does want, but she restrains herself, because the snake is wrapped around all of her friends, and to kill it is to kill her friends. So she waits, bides her time, watching the snake wrap tighter and tighter with nothing she can do about it.

Peter Hale worms his way deeper and deeper into their lives, and the only one who could do anything about it is trapped securely, manipulated into needing the serpent from day one.


End file.
